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Jewelry Fun!
Crafts That Encourage Pretend Play and Creativity
By Terri Bose
Children love to dress up. Give them a few pieces of costume jewelry, and they'll be busy for hours – well, a few minutes anyway. Here are a couple of projects you can do with your child to make dress-up time even more fun!
What You Need:
- Ziti
- Wagon wheels
- Food coloring
- Rubbing alcohol
- Plastic zipper bags
- Yarn
- White glue
- Scissors
- Newspaper
Here's What You Do: 
You may want to prepare the pasta after the kids go to bed. It's not really messy but you'll have less clean up without overzealous little fingers participating. To color the pasta, put 2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol and 5 to 10 drops of food coloring in a Ziploc bag. Add 2 cups of pasta. Zip the bag. Shake gently to distribute the liquid over the pasta. Let stand for a few minutes. Remove pasta and spread it out to dry on newspaper. Repeat with additional colors. Let dry overnight.
Prepare the yarn by cutting it into 1-yard lengths. Roll the ends between your fingers in a dab of white glue to stiffen. Let dry. Tie a wagon wheel or a bead on one end.
Let the little ones string necklaces, making patterns or matching colors depending on their abilities.